Databricks strikes deal to buy Panther Labs in cybersecurity push

SAN FRANCISCO, June 16 (Reuters) - ‌Databricks said ​on ​Tuesday it had agreed to buy startup Panther Labs, as the U.S. data analytics provider pushes deeper into ‌the cybersecurity business.

The acquisition, Databricks' third in this area, furthers ⁠its aim to compete with security management incumbents like CrowdStrike and Cisco's ‌Splunk.

Databricks declined to comment on ‌the deal terms.

Panther, valued at $1.4 billion after raising $120 million in Series B funding in 2021, gathers data sources and key ​ingredients for security in one place. That way, AI programs that act with limited human intervention, known as agents, can ⁠respond to a rising flood of threats in the AI age. Anthropic is a customer, the ​companies have said.

Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi said in an interview that AI had drastically shrunk how much time ​attackers need to exploit software vulnerabilities, ‌and old ways of managing security information and alerts were "dead."

"If they're going to attack you with agents, ⁠you have to defend with agents," Ghodsi told Reuters, during the company's Data + AI Summit in San Francisco this week. "You have to fight ⁠fire with fire."

According to Ghodsi, he first met Panther CEO Jack Naglieri in ​2021, had dinner with him and pitched an acquisition years ago without success.

"He wanted to continue going alone," Ghodsi said. "That was a good idea for ‌him because his valuation has been going up since then and he's built an awesome platform."

At $134 ‌billion, Databricks is one of the world's most valuable privately held ⁠companies. It unveiled its security ‌ambitions in March with ​a product called Lakewatch.

(Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Franklin Paul and ‌Mark Porter)

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